2000 Perfect Day

1 : The Beginning

The perfect day for me started the day before. In fact it started the year before, on the 31^st December 1999, the last day of the 20^th Century and the second millennium since the birth of Jesus.

After a day of preparation and planning, I was picked up by some friends and we drove to the next town to pick up some more friends, then with 8 of us packed in the car we sped over to a party on the edge of Dartmoor. Arriving just half an hour before midnight we were soon into the swing of the party and I realised how true it is that it doesn't matter where we are for events like seeing in the new millennium, but who we're with. I'm thankful to be able to relax in a group of people I know and love. We're all dressed up as aliens, space men or some vaguely futuristic creature. But we're the same underneath.

We do all the normal things, dance to cheezy pop songs, drink, talk and mess around, pushing boundaries we'd normally steer well clear of, enjoying the mood. For a bit of variety we play table tennis, and cover everything with glitter spray.

The moment comes, with a countdown on the radio, and the striking of Big Ben. We let off party poppers and hug and kiss, wishing each other a happy new millennium, and hoping that we'll enjoy the few short years and decades that we'll know of it. Hoping we'll be together and that our friends will stand by us.

The party continues, and slowly people fade away, drifting off to sleep. A few of us stay up to watch old films and the late night rubbish on TV. Then in the morning we drive up to Dartmoor, too early for the sunrise. We're surprised to find a full car park and so many people waiting for the first light of the year 2000. We have to nip back to take a friend to work, but return with reinforcements just in time for the sunrise.

The car park is now close to overflowing, and Hay Tor is shrouded in thick mist. We're surprised to see everyone leaving, walking back to their cars, having given up all hope to the blinding mist. Knowing the sun is up, and there is nothing to see. But I look up and can see the bright blue sky, realise that the mist is only a thin layer, just a few meters above our heads. So we squelch our way up the Tor, and climb up the cold, slippery rocks to the top. As soon as we set foot on the now abandoned granite, the mist around us thins, and by the time we reach the top we are allowed a glimpse of perfection. The whole of Dartmoor behind us, and the hills and valleys in front of us, reaching down to the grey sea, is covered in wisps and pockets of mist, and we're lifted above it, as if floating on a rocky island. The mist flows over the hills, constantly changing our view, and turning damp hills into part of an awe inspiring display of the beauty of nature. The sun has just risen, and slowly breaks its way through the layer of mist, shining its weak Winter rays at us, turning silver into gold.

For ten minutes we enjoy this sight, one second struck dumb with the beauty, the next overflowing with praise to him who made it all. Glad that we're together, surrounded by love as well as the mist.

Then, as the mist rolls back over us, we're covered in morning dew and our island sinks out of sight. Behind us there's a golden ring, like a monotone rainbow, hanging in the mist, and in the middle is a golden circle, with a clear shadow of us in it. Somehow the sun is creating this display, as its light strengthens and turns the enveloping mist into a golden haze. This is the most beautiful scene that we've ever seen in all of Dartmoor's treasures.

The day had started, and we rushed back to tell the others, to show them photos of the sunrise we'd witnessed, to try and explain the sight that we'd seen, the blessing of a new day.

We leave for home, filled with joy. A perfect party followed by a glimpse of heaven, our hearts lifted and ready for more. Our bodies ready for sleep.

2 : Day One

So here we are. Somewhere new. Well, some-when new in any case. But the same inside. Or was there a new birth, a new hope, a new commitment to live life to the full. Maybe just the spaced out existence that comes from lack of sleep.

I try to snatch a few moments of sleep.

Sleep.

Tomorrow my sister leaves us for Poland, to work in the city, clothed in snow. So we must see the coast, smell the sea before she returns to her frozen home. We decide to try a new one - well, the other end of a beach that we often visit, pebbles and steep inclines, views of headlands and cormorants. We walk, my mind closed but my eyes open. I skim countless soft, round stones into the calm sea, trying to reward the new year with my best skims ever. My sister finds wonder in the shells and jelly fish that have been washed up by the recent storms and high seas. I'm overcome with the sheer number of shells, band upon band of empty homes, the missing owners long dead. I've never seen so many together, and there's some big fish washed up, lying in an alien land, lost without the water around them. I'd love to swap places for a day, swim around their mysterious world, see sights that would blow my mind.

The cliffs call and I climb, avoiding the broken slate that will soon fall to the pebbled beach below. On top of an outcrop I imagine jumping into the clear sea, and hold on tightly to make sure that I don't do it, knowing I'm too tired to swim, and would be weighed down by my clothes and boots. I'll come again in the summer. I will.

So we walk back, but my body gives up so I lie on the wet stones. Crawl and slide my way along the beach, run my shaved head through the refreshing sand, until my family pick me up - hoping I won't been seen and taken away for my strange behaviour. I run back, fooling my body into thinking I have the energy to do this. Then doze in the car and arrive at home. Alive and well. Well, alive.

3 : The Word

There's a time for everything. A time to live and a time to die. A time to learn and a time to forget. A time to grow and a time to fall. I've had my time of forgetting and falling, it's time to turn and learn again, to grow and travel closer to God.

So this is it. Here I am. What shall I do? Pray, and learn, pray and read, pray and reach out to God, pray and read the word. Speak the word. Live the word. Know the word.

The living word.

My life. His life. Your life. It's not cold words written in ages past, but the breath of God pouring into me, into us all. Made alive by the spirit. Made alive by hope and faith, oh - and love. I love my God and live my life before him. I've fallen for too long now, and although I am frail I will turn back, walk on, strive forward. And I'm not alone. All around me the word is being spoken, being lived out, being shared. I'll join in, and hopefully bring others with me, it's time I started to lead people to you Lord, to really knowing you each day, and loving you.

It is time. It's always time for some things. Always time to praise, and to live. Always time to die. Die to my lies and lusts, die to my falsehood and tears. Live for life, for me and those around me, we're hungry for more, hungry for hope and desperate for faith. So give it to us, what we don't deserve, lead us Jesus. And I'll be there with you, I hope. And I'll know you, through faith. At this start of time, continue in me.

You in me, and me in you, in the Father we are one. Lead me oh Lord for I am yours.

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